India goes ‘headless’ in UNAIDS website

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India goes `headless' in UNAIDS website

Thursday November 23 2006 10:55 IST

KOZHIKODE: In a bizarre incident the official website of UNAIDS, the

United Nation's agency working on various HIV- AIDS eradication

programmes across the world, has published a politically distorted

map of India in which the country appeared in a mutilated shape

without Jammu & Kashmir on its top end.

The undated web page which appeared on the website,

www.unaids.org/regions, deals with the country's situation analysis

of HIV till 2006. The map is placed on top of the webpage.

It was the Joint Action Council Kannur(JACK), a Kerala-based NGO,

which brought to notice the `missing' of Kashmir in the map of the

country.

The organisation which has sought clarification from the India office

of the agency has received no reply on the issue so far.

JACK has also sent letters raising concern over the issue to the

Prime Minister, President and other concerned ministers, but no reply

from anybody has been received so far.

" I have sent 8 letters to the Prime Minister raising the issue of

serious manipulations by UNAIDS including the distorted map. Besides,

letters were sent to the President and Ministers of External Affairs,

Home and Defence, " said Purushothaman Mulloli, the convenor of JACK.

Meanwhile, the India office of the agency replied negatively to the

repeated inquiries made by this reporter through e-mail.

UNAIDS India coordinator Broun, who denied the existence of

such a site initially, agreed later that the map is in use in Geneva.

Instead of giving a specific answer, the India coordinator directed

this reporter to contact its Geneva office for further clarification

and still failed to answer why such a distorted map is on the UNAIDS

web site.

" The agency has clear agendas. If you look at the website of UNAIDS

you would not trace the distorted map. The agency has more than 100

sites and the map of India without Kashmir will help them in some

other parts of the world, " said Purushothaman.

Failing to secure any reply from the Prime Minister and other

ministers, JACK approached various political party leaders including

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat and briefed them on the issue of

map distortion.

" All of them, irrespective of their political differences, reacted

sharply on the outrageous act of UNAIDS and they will raise the issue

during the winter session of the Parliament, " Purushothaman said.

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